Technical Committee (TC) Environmental Engineering (EE) Activity Report 2023

Chair: Beniamino Gorini, Nokia

Responsible for defining equipment engineering, bonding and grounding, power supply interface and environmental aspects for telecommunication infrastructures and equipment.

ETSI’s Environmental Engineering Committee (TC EE) manages various engineering aspects of telecommunication equipment in different types of installation. These include climatic, thermal and other environmental conditions; physical requirements of equipment racks and cabinets; power supplies and grounding; Circular Economy (including lifecycle analysis) and energy performance measurement and assessment methods for different parts of radio access networks including data centres. The committee’s work also embraces innovative energy storage technologies for ICT equipment – for example to provide resilience in sustainable smart cities.

Much of our work supports European Commission (EC) policies, regulation and legislation on eco-design aspects, where we liaise with the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) and CEN to develop relevant standards.

The committee is also in continuous interaction with ITU-T SG5 on the production of technically aligned deliverables, with a co-located meeting taking place in June 2023 at ETSI premises. A joint workshop on sustainability is currently being organized in collaboration with SG5, scheduled to take place in 2024.

During 2023 TC EE’s activities continued to address four key areas: revision of environmental classes to consider climate change adaptation aspects; measurement methods for the energy efficiency of ICT equipment; standardization on eco-design aspects of servers and storage products; and requirements for power supply interfaces of ICT equipment.

EE 01 – environmental conditions

Our Working Group EE 01 started the revision of the environmental classes in line with latest IEC classification and taking into account climate change aspects. Furthermore, the revision of environmental test standards has progressed to clarify expected performance criteria and the application of the tests.

Published in October 2023, EN 300 019-2-6 V3.1.1 updates the second part of our multi-part European Standard ‘Environmental conditions and environmental tests for telecommunications equipment’. Part 2: Sub-part 6 considers specification of environmental tests in ship environments.

During the year progress was also made on development or revision of various standards, technical specifications and reports, notably addressing:

  • Liquid cooling and high energy efficiency solutions for 5G Baseband Units (BBU) in C-RAN mode.
  • Environmental conditions and environmental tests for telecommunications equipment; Part 1: Classification of environmental conditions:
    • Sub-part 1: Storage
    • Sub-part 3: Stationary use at weather-protected locations
    • Sub-part 4: Stationary use at non-weather-protected locations
  • Environmental conditions and environmental tests for telecommunications equipment; Part 2: Specification of environmental tests:
    • Sub-part 3: Stationary use at weather-protected locations
    • Sub-part 7: Portable and non-stationary use

See the full list of EE 01 Work Items currently in development here.

EE 02 - power supply, bonding and related topics

Published in January 2023, EN 300 132-3 V2.3.1 updates the third part of our European Standard on power supply interface at the input of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) equipment, considering systems up to 400 VDC.

During the year progress was also made on development or revision of various standards, technical specifications and reports, notably:

  • Interworking between Direct Current/Isolated (DC/I) and Direct Current/Common (DC/C) electrical power systems
  • Impact on ICT equipment architecture of multiple AC, -48 VDC or up to 400 VDC power inputs
  • Monitoring and Control Interface for Infrastructure Equipment (power, cooling and building environment systems used in telecommunication networks)
    • Part 1: Generic interface
    • Part 11: Battery system with integrated control and monitoring information model
    • Part 12: ICT equipment power, energy and environmental parameters monitoring information model
  • Earthing and bonding of ICT equipment powered by -48 VDC in telecom and data centres
  • Earthing and bonding of 400 VDC data and telecom (ICT) equipment
  • Power supply interface at the input of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) equipment; Part 2: -48 V Direct Current (DC)

See the full list of EE 02 Work Items currently in development here.

EE EEPS - environmental efficiency standards for radio access networks

In January 2023 we published European Standard EN 303 808 V1.1.1, ‘Applicability of EN 45552 to EN 45559 methods for assessment of material efficiency aspects of ICT network infrastructure goods in the context of circular economy’. The standard defines an assessment of the direct applicability of eight general material efficiency standards to ICT network infrastructure goods.

At the end of 2023 work was concluded on a Technical Specification – to be published in early 2024 as TS 103 881 – on requirements for a global digital sustainable ‘product passport’ to achieve a circular economy. This work was launched in collaboration with ITU-T SG5 to define the semantics of product information to be represented in digital format. Facilitating and automating the comparison of different ICT products based on relevant attributes with a focus on circularity aspects, it can also enable preparation and reuse in the second-hand market and the reverse supply chain.

During the year progress was also made on development or revision of various standards, technical specifications and reports, notably:

  • Energy efficiency measurement methodology and metrics for various server architectures
  • Green Abstraction Layer (GAL); Power management capabilities of future energy telecommunication fixed network nodes; Enhanced Interface for power management in Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) environments
  • Energy efficiency metrics and measurement methods for data storage equipment
  • Energy Efficiency measurement methodology and metrics for heterogeneous servers
  • Assessment of material efficiency of ICT network infrastructure goods (circular economy)
    • Part 2: server and data storage product secure data deletion functionality
    • Part 3: server and data storage product availability of firmware and of security updates to firmware
    • Part 5: server and data storage product disassembly and disassembly instructions
  • Metrics and Measurement Method for Energy Efficiency of Wireless Access Network Equipment; Part 2: Energy Efficiency - dynamic measurement method
  • Study on multi-dimensional network energy efficiency metrics
  • Report on processor power management functionality of servers
  • Dynamic energy performance measurement method for 5G Base Stations
  • Methodology for environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of ICT goods, networks and services
  • Guidance on simplified Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) goods, networks, and services
  • Information model for digital product information on sustainability and circularity
  • Fixed Network Energy Efficiency definition and measurement
  • Assessment of how the use of ICT solutions impacts on greenhouse gas emissions of other sectors (aligned guidance between ETSI and ITU‑T)
  • Measurement method for energy consumption of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE)
  • Assessment of mobile network energy efficiency
  • Metrics and measurement method for energy efficiency of wireless access network equipment; Part 1: Power consumption - static measurement method

See the full list of EE EEPS Work Items currently in development here.

EE M-ICT - environmental matters associated with mobile ICT devices

In 2023 WG M-ICT launched work on a new standardized method for assessing and scoring the environmental performance of smartphones.

See the full list of EE M-ICT Work Items currently in development here.